


The Legends of the Old Guard

by happydaygirl



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Gen, M/M, POV Outsider, blanket warning for violence as standard, collection of stories surrounding the old guard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:20:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29656755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happydaygirl/pseuds/happydaygirl
Summary: Throughout history people all around the world have been touched by The Old Guard, a band of seemingly mystical beings who help those when they really need it and woe betide all who get in their way. These are their stories; emotional, trivial, and everything in between.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 12
Kudos: 29





	1. Chapter 1

**Normandy, France.**

**6 June, 1944.**

He’s been shot. He hadn’t noticed at first- the adrenaline coursing through his body is painful as he desperately scrabbles up the beach, his numb fingers curled around his rifle like his life depended on it. He’d nearly dropped it on his charge up the sand with his fellow soldiers; his hands had been slick with sweat and he was shaking so much he’d had to hold it close to his body just to get some purchase on the metal.

He falls to his knees on a sandbank, one hand falling from his gun to clasp at his side, where his uniform is ripped and blood seeps onto his palm. He can hear endless screaming, loud even over the explosions and sound of gunfire. The smell of blood cloys in his nose as he hits the sand hard, the golden grains hitting his face and scratching the near two-week old stubble on his chin.

‘Medic!’ he calls hoarsely, looking around at the slew of bodies, some alive and screaming, some dead and silent, that peppered the ground between him and safety. The Germans were shooting at will, machine-gunning their way down Omaha like they were at a funfair. His fellow soldiers fell like birds, yelling as bullets riddle their bodies.

‘Medic!’ he calls again, his voice nearly spent as he sinks back to the sand, his hands still clutching at his side. He can’t feel anything squishing in his hands, so he has hope his innards aren’t about to fall out- images of his best friend, Cooper, holding his intestines in his hands as he fell back into the surf flashed in his mind, making tears prick in his eyes.

Men rush past him in their haste to get to safe ground, to advance up the beach and make it behind enemy lines- its not that they don’t have any empathy or humanity for the men lying injured and dying underneath their boots; what else can they do?

He can feel his lips start to shake as the cold bites into his skin; his uniform is soaked and is turning white with rapidly-drying salt from the sea. He licks his dry lips and tastes the acrid sodium- he spits onto the sand, wiping his face with shaky hands as his side begins to really bloom with pain now his adrenaline was wearing off.

‘M-medic….’ He calls again, now jutting a hand out upwards towards the stormy skies as yet another group of men surge past.

‘Booker, he’s alive!’ he hears a man shout from somewhere overhead- now his head feels stuffed with cotton, and he’s unsure if its just his mind playing tricks on him.

‘Quick Book, hurry!’ No. He’s not dreaming- he lets out a garbled yelp of thanks as three men throw themselves down next to him, narrowly avoiding another barrage of bullets. One of them men catches a bullet to the shoulder but seems to just shrug it off as if it were nothing; perhaps it missed him, but he was sure he saw a spray of blood?

‘What’s your name?’ a man with mousy brown hair asks- he’s lost his helmet somewhere and his face is peppered with blood, yet there is a concern in his eyes that is almost touching.

‘B-Brandon…’ Brandon replied, teeth chattering now in the cold. ‘Brandon Williams.’

‘Don’t you worry Brandon Williams,’ the other man says, his hand curled around Brandon’s own hand, calm and comforting. ‘Book’s gonna fix you up- he’s gonna look after you.’

‘You g-guys are life sa-savers…’ Brandon allows himself to be pulled onto his back, where the man they called Booker rips open his uniform and inspects the wound.

‘Bullets still in there.’ He says, voice sharp, down to business. They all duck as they hear another rapid firing of machine guns- one of the other men, a larger guy with his helmet strapped tight under his chin, throws himself forwards and covers Brandon’s body with his own, saving him from any bullets as the relentless shooting continues.

Still Booker does not stop working even as he cowers in the sand; he is quick to work, and he ignores Brandon’s pained cries as he begins to dig out the bullet.

‘It’s alright, Kid,’ he placates when the pain obviously becomes too much. ‘We can’t stay here much longer, so I have to be fast, I’m sorry.’ He looks to the brown haired man, nodding to the bag latched to his side. ‘Nicky, bandages- we need to get up the beach.’

Bandon watches as Nicky nods and scrabbles in the bag, his blood covered hands stark against his pale skin- ‘here.’ He says, pressing them into Booker’s hands.

‘Alright Kid, I’m gonna wrap your wound ok? The bullet is out, but we need to get the bleeding under control!’ he yells over yet more explosions and subsequent screaming.

Brandon nods his understanding and lies back, bracing himself from the agony that is to come. He feels two hands grasp his shoulder and squeeze lightly; the two other men are holding onto him, bracing him. The pain comes seconds later as Booker tightly wraps his wound; his squeezes his eyes shut and tries- and fails- to hold in a strained yelp as the man ties off the bandage before he sits back, wiping bloody hands on his stained uniform.

‘We need to go now!’ the man sitting next to Nicky says, and Brandon looks fearfully to the side, at the chaos his world has become. He doesn’t want to be here anymore. He wants to be at home on his father’s farm, tending the cattle and the chickens and fishing in the pond and-

‘Brandon!’ Booker takes his shoulder and shakes him. ‘We need to go right now! If we stay here you’re gonna die!’

‘Alright…’ Brandon switched back to solider-mode as quickly as he can; his muscles are tired and his head is too full, but he heaves himself upwards and onto his knees.

Bile rises into his throat as his head spins, but the men by his side hold onto him and haul him upwards; they stagger together up the sandbank and up the beach. They seem to have no regard for their own safety as they shield his body with their own; Booker’s hand is pressed against his side to allow for more pressure as they run and Brandon knows he has been blessed with three guardian angels this day.

They throw themselves forwards towards where the other men are huddled, cowering near enemy lines as they desperately look for a way in. ‘Joe, over there!’ Nicky calls out, and Joe has his rifle up in seconds; a yelp is heard and the bullets stop raining from that particular direction.

Nicky clasps him on the shoulder as they ensure he is safe with his comrades.

‘Good luck, kid.’ Booker nods to him, giving him a brotherly wink that makes Brandon miss his own brother, Stephen. He hopes he’s okay, wherever he is in this madness they call war.

Nicky and Joe nod over to him; Joe salutes him as the three men turn away and hurry- inexplicably- back down the beach, into enemy crossfire once more.

‘Who the hell are those guys?’ he mumbles to another solider, shaking his head in wonder.

‘Never seen them before.’ The other man shrugs, his mind turning to other things.

Brandon swallows back saltwater and bile and turns to face his next challenge, mercifully alive thanks to the courage and bravery of three perfect strangers.


	2. Chapter 2

The drought has been going for ten months now, and all hope is almost gone. The fields are brown and parched, the crops lying like sticks on the cracked earth. The wells are dry as sand, and the rivers, once gushing with water, now only provide a few puddles for the truly desperate, animal and human alike. Parasites riddle the remaining water, and the little girl knows this as she tries to swallow it down, her nose wrinkling at the taste and smell. Her parents can offer her nothing else.

The government promised trucks full of water, and of basic food supplies, but they stopped coming once they discovered the price others were willing to pay for such goods. She has grown to tolerate the endless tinned food and what was left of the stored meats and vegetables that she has to eat; she yearns for bread and cheese, like her grandmother serves her when she used to visit, but her parent tell her to be grateful for what she has.

She sits on the edge of what was an impressive pond and water feature, the sun beating down unrelentingly upon her head, burning her thin shoulders as she sits wiling the day away. Schooling had stopped months ago once the teachers had to care for their own families, let alone the children of other people.

Her parents argue in the kitchen- the little girl hugs her knees against her chest, clasping her hands across them as she listens to the raised voices. She tries not to pay attention, but her brothers have been gone over a week and everyone fears the worst. She is afraid now, more than she has ever been in her six-year life. She has seen things no other child should see, and yet she knows somehow that there will be more.

The small walled garden is somewhat cool, and she stands up to duck into the shade the wall itself brings; she put her back to the cool whitewashed stone and closes her eyes. She wishes this was all over, but the heat makes her sweat and she can’t get into a good daydream. Life gets in the way.

She hears a noise somewhere to her left, over the wall and onto the dusty street behind- voices suddenly erupt, high pitched and pleading, then grateful prayers coupled with a lady sobbing.

She scrambles up, banging her knee as she climbs the stump of a tree to hoist herself over the wall to peek out at what was going on. Four people walk down the road, large woven sacks in their arms. A woman shielding her head from the scorching sun hands walks alongside three men, their faces lined with sweat as they walk; the road they were walking on is dusty and almost bereft of houses. They must have walked miles.

They are throwing things gently to people, who catch them gratefully and thank them graciously as they pass. The little girl’s eyes widen as she sees what it is these people are offering the others in her village.

‘Mama!’ she calls back over her shoulder, scrambling off the stump and racing inside the tiled kitchen- her parents, with their red-rimmed eyes and gesticulating hands, look down at their daughter as she points outside.

‘Water!’ she shouts- her parents look at each other and run through the house and into the street, hardly able to believe that at least half of their prayers have been answered.

* * *

She drinks fresh water for the first time in weeks that night, and eats nearly a half a loaf of bread to herself. She goes to bed with her belly full, content for at least that night. She thanks the strangers in her prayers before she sleeps, dreaming of better times to come in the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as an FYI, these chapters won't all be posted daily, just when I write them ^^


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning in this chapter for Homophobia and the theme of the Aids crisis in the 1980s.

**1984, London.**

The rain has been falling steadily for hours now, and Ben is tired of racing raindrops down the glass window pane. He looks out (as much as he can) at the greying London sky, at the large swollen rainclouds sending this deluge on what should be a bright July day.

His bed is hard and the mattress is worn down so thin he can feel the springs, but he supposes he can’t complain. It was good of the hospital to even let him in once he’d had his funny turn. Nobody said very much to him now, not since he’d been put in this room by himself and the door shut and firmly locked behind him; food was delivered three times a day by a nurse in a large blue plastic suit, her gloved hands almost dipping into his food they were so thick. It would be placed on his bed tray and not collected again until the following day alongside the other, uneaten, plates of food.

No one is allowed to visit him, and the isolation has hit him the hardest- his parents, once they had been told what was wrong with him, refused to visit him, preferring to insist he wasn’t even alive any more to spare themselves any humiliation to their friends.

Nathan has been forbidden to visit, but does send him letters that get gets wrapped in yet more plastic, lest his touch (another dirty soul in their eyes) infect their own hands.

The letters make him cry and he cherishes each and every one, re-reading them even in the scant light of his lamp when he is unable to sleep, but it is not comparable at all to a human touch. He misses Nathan so much his heart aches, and he cries himself to fitful slumber most mornings as the sun rises on yet another day of loneliness.

He sighs and pulls his blanket up; his arms are weaker (to the point that now he can hardly move at all) and his chest hurts just from breathing; his doctor- when he can be bothered to even show up to talk to him- has explained that the cancer in his body is doing this, and all he can do is live with it. There is no hope.

AIDS. A strange set of four letters. He had been so fearful of it when the rumours started. He had thought he had been so careful.

Yet, here he was. Alone. Scared. So very, very alone. 

He looks up as the doorknob twists harshly at his door at the other end of the room. _Its locked_ , he thinks of calling, but the person behind the door has obviously figured it out for themselves, as he hears an angry shout followed by the clip-clapping of the heels of one of the nurses as she comes to the door herself. He hears the key turn in the lock, and watches as the door opens, but this time not to deliver food.

‘Hello,’ the man stands at the other side of the room, arm raised in salutation. ‘Mind if I come in?’

Ben tries to speak but he hasn’t been able to get to his water since the nurse left it too far away on his tray; his voice comes out cracked and garbled, yet the man seems to understand.

‘Would you like a drink?’ the man asks as he moves forwards- Ben nods, a grateful smile on his face as this man grasps his glass of tepid water and holds it to his lips. He drinks gratefully before moving backwards, feeling refreshed almost immediately.

‘Thank you,’ he whispers, finding his voice again as he clears his throat painfully. ‘I would have had to call through the door for help if you hadn’t of come.’

‘How dare they lock your door,’ the man mutters tersely, before looking around and pulling a plastic chair across the floor and to the foot of the bed. ‘May I sit with you for a while?’

‘If you want,’ Ben says, hearing himself the confusion in his voice. Why would this man want to sit with him?

‘My name’s Nicky,’ the man tells him, getting comfortable on the hard chair. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Ben.’ Ben answers, voice still clipped.

‘Hi Ben- I thought I could just sit with you for a while, if that’s alright?’

Ben opens his mouth to ask why, but realises that he can’t. This is the first time he has seen someone who isn’t a judgemental doctor or fearful nurse in days. If this man is happy to sit with him, he wasn’t about to drive him away with questions on his motivations.

‘Thank you,’ he says instead, his heart filling with emotion as Nicky smiles over at him and settles back. ‘Your accent,’ he says after a while, breaking the surprisingly companiable silence between them. ‘Where is it from?’

Nicky smiles. ‘Italy.’

‘It’s lovely, like a song.’ Ben looks around at his empty room, devoid of all personality. ‘Makes a change from the rain, that’s for sure.’

‘How long have you been here?’

‘Not sure, a week maybe? I had a fall in the street and when the ambulance saw all the marks on my body they brought me right here…’ Ben explained, moving his blankets down a little to show the array of sarcomas that peppered his arms and neck.

‘I’m so sorry.’ Nicky says, his voice low.

‘They sent me here to die, you know. I’ve made my peace with it, but it- it shouldn’t be like this…’

‘No, no it shouldn’t.’ Nicky replies, inhaling deeply. He leans over and gently takes hold of Ben’s hand, enveloping it in his own.

Ben’s eyes widen and he makes to pull back his hand- what is this man doing?! Surely he knows what this is, what he has? He begins to protest with a startled ‘no, don’t-‘ because this man doesn’t deserve what he has, yet Nicky shakes his head and gives him a calming smile.

‘It’s alright, I promise. It’s ok.’ His words are soothing, and Ben, his heart hammering in his chest, believes him. He settles down in his covers, the touch of this man’s hand warm and grounding to his skin. He takes a deep breath out and realises he is shaking.

Nicky moves his thumb along his knuckles before rubbing comforting circles on the back of his hand, where the skin is taut and dry.

Ben, out of nowhere, feels tears erupt and fall down his cheeks- it has been so long since he has been touched by anyone in a personal way, not to take blood or check his blood pressure, that he has forgotten what it feels like.

‘It’s alright,’ Nicky says, using his other hand to wipe the tear from his cheek. ‘You’re alright, its ok…’

Ben relaxes at the tone of his voice- he misses Nathan more than ever. He closes his eyes, imagines this man’s hands is Nathan working the kinks out of his muscles after a long day at work.

‘Do you need anything at all?’ Nicky asks after a few minutes, his voice reverberating around the room as Ben opens his eyes.

‘I don’t think so,’ he replies sadly. ‘My boyfriend is not allowed to come- my parents have shown his photo at the front desk so they will recognise him. They don’t want him to visit me even though they too refuse to do so. I am alone here.’ His voice dips as he swallows a lump in his throat.

‘I will see you get much better food- your stomach cannot cope with what they are offering now, you need to keep your strength up.’ Nicky told him, looking around. ‘And I’ll ensure your door is kept unlocked from now on.’

‘What did I do to deserve this?’ it’s a genuine question to him, and Ben really want to know the answer.

Nicky smiles and clasps his hand again, squeezing lightly. ‘We are all human and deserve to be treated as such.’

Ben’s eyes prick with tears again. He wipes them away with the back of his hand and settles into his bed. ‘There is one thing you can do, if you wouldn’t mind?’ he asks after a while.

‘Anything,’

‘Tell me a story, please?’ He asks, looking across to him with wide eyes. ‘In Italian?’

‘You understand Italian?’

‘No, but its so beautiful that I don’t really mind what you say- you can tell the dirtiest joke in the world and I’d still think it was a love song.’

Nicky smiles, and scoots his chair forwards, his hand still clasped around Ben’s. He starts his story, reciting from memory; it is one of Joe’s favourites to fall asleep to when he has a bad night.

Sure enough, after a few minutes of speaking, Ben’s eyes flutter shut, his mind filled with love songs and hot, sandy beaches. He is asleep before Nicky starts reciting the next verse.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> The chapter limit is currently at 26 chapters, but if I get any more ideas I will certainly add to this- also, if you have any prompts or even little ideas for an outside POV please let me know either in the comments, or on my Tumblr askbox at Happydaygirlfanfiction- the only think I won't do is real historical people. Events are fine, just not people.
> 
> As I said I will add additional warning for each chapter if they are particularly triggerable, because the tags would be huge if I added them there!
> 
> Thanks for reading -Please let me know what you think!


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